Gowrow
by subtract
Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester's latest case leads them to cave jumping, underwater sword fights, and a monster straight out of Ozark mountain folklore. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Gowrow**

**Chapter One**

Lynn shook her sister Melody awake at two in the morning. "Melody. Melody wake up!"

"Lynn?" Melody mumbled groggily. "...the hell are you doing..."

"I found another story."

Melody groaned and buried her face into her pillow. "And this couldn't wait until morning?"

Lynn pulled the pillow out from underneath Melody's head. "No. The fearsome gowrow is only active at night!"

"You are my eternal punishment." Melody yawned and ran her hands through her hair. "This had better be good."

"It is, it is, I promise!" Lynn settled cross legged on Melody's stolen pillow and turned on a flashlight underneath her chin, which made Melody grumble and squint her eyes.

"The year is 1897," Lynn began in a dramatic voice. "Travelers have come from out of state to explore the Ozark mountains. All the farmers warn them to stay away because a terrifying monster called the Gowrow has awoken and is eating their livestock!"

"That's the stupidest name I've ever heard."

"The gowrow," Lynn continued as though she hadn't heard Melody, "is named for the growling noise it makes. It is totally horrifying to all who hear it."

"Yeah, I'd pee myself if I heard something coming at me saying 'gow toe'."

"It's gowrow. And you totally would pee yourself because it's a twenty foot lizard with huge tusks and sharp claws and a knife for a tail and it eats people and-"

"Okay, I get the picture. It probably has beady little eyes too, right?"

Lynn huffed indignantly. "The gowrow loves caves and lakes. It has big milky eyes and really bad vision."

"Get back to the story please," Melody sighed.

"I would if people would stop interrupting me, geez! Okay, so the travelers ignore the farmers' warnings and venture into the mountains."

"Woah, didn't see that one coming."

"Melody! Stop interrupting! The travelers wander through the mountains all day, but they never see the gowrow."

"Then what's the point of this story?"

Lynn whomped Melody in the face with her pillow. "Shut up! I'm trying to tell you but you won't stop talking!"

"Okay, okay, sorry, don't get upset," Melody said, rubbing her face.

"You can be a real pain in the butt sometimes. So what I was trying to say was that they don't see the gowrow until they settle down for the night by a famous sinkhole called the Devil's Hole."

"You mean the Devil's Hole that is coincidentally right near our house?"

"Melody! Ugh!"

"That was the last time, I'm being quiet now, I promise."

Lynn scowled, but continued. "That night, right before they fall asleep, they hear a deep growling noise coming from the Devil's Hole. One person goes over to look-" Lynn paused dramatically. "-and is snatched up by a huge green lizard claw!"

"No. Way."

"Yes way. The other travelers rush over to help him, but before they can get close, the entire gowrow crawls out of the sinkhole and attacks them! They try to shoot it but it's too fast, and it drags them all down to its lair where it keeps them all for dinner!"

Melody frowned. "So...if they all get eaten where does the story come from?"

Lynn hesitated. "Um...well, explorers pieced the story together later."

"Really," Melody said, raising an eyebrow.

"Um, yes, really. Very intelligent explorers." And here Lynn smiled mischievously. "Smart explorers...like us?"

Melody blinked, processing this, then-

"No. Absolutely not."

"Please, Mel!"

"We are _not_ hiking around Devil's Hole at two in the morning."

"But we have to! I want to look for the gowrow and it's only active at night and Mom will _never_ take me..."

"Hmm, I wonder why?"

"You're just scared of the gowrow."

"I am not!"

"Are too! Prove that you're not!"

Melody gaped at her, then groaned loudly and reached for her car keys on her bedside table.

"I cannot _believe_ we're doing this."

Lynn squealed excitedly and threw her arms around Melody. "Thank you thank you thank you! You won't regret it, I promise, this will be fun!"

"Go get our hiking boots and put them in the car, you manipulative little brat."

A half hour drive and a short hike later had them at the Devil's Hole.

"Hmm, I don't know about you, but I don't see any go-roes."

"Gowrows."

"Whatever." Melody ran her fingers through her hair again. "Look, Lynn, not that I'm not having a blast here, but maybe we should start thinking about heading back?"

Lynn's face crumpled. "Come on Mel, five minutes...please?"

Melody checked the time on her phone. "You have three minutes, kid."

Lynn bit her lip and scampered to investigate the sink hole. The gaping maw of the Devil's Hole, while not particularly frightening in the afternoon sunlight, took on a more menacing appearance in the moonlight. She crept to the edge and knelt in the dirt. If she squinted into the darkness, it was almost like she could see a pair of glowing white eyes...

_No!_ Lynn shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was practically a professional explorer, after all, and explorers were known for being cool under pressure.

She picked up a pebble and weighed it in her hand, then chucked it into the hole, right where she saw the eyes in the darkness. The rock bounced against the walls, but she never heard it hit the bottom.

Melody sat down at the edge of the lake a short distance from the sink hole and rubbed her eyes sleepily. She couldn't believe she'd agreed to this wild good chase. Or, wild gowrow chase.

Whatever.

Melody sighed and tiredly watched the completely still, glass-like surface of the water. The bottom of the lake dropped off into deep water, and she could see groups of small fish drifting about.

"I bet your sisters don't drag you out to the wilderness in the middle of the night, she said to the fish. "I bet they sleep through the night like a normal person..."

She yawned loudly. "Normal people probably don't talk to fish either," she said as she watched them. To her surprise, a ripple passed through the water and the fish began swimming away at top speed.

Melody frowned. Weird. Where we're they going?

A popping noise brought her attention to the center of the lake. Streams of bubbles had appeared and were bursting on the surface of the water, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Lynn?" Melody called. But Lynn either didn't hear her or was ignoring her.

Was it Melody's imagination, or were those bubbles moving closer? Something about this felt _so_ wrong to her.

"Lynn!" she called again, louder this time. She tore her gaze away from the lake to find her sister, who was still kneeling at the sinkhole.

"Wait a minute Mel!" Lynn whined. "I thought I saw something!"

Melody scrambled up to her sister and away from the lake's edge. "So did I. We're leaving."

"Mel, no, not yet, not when we're so close -"

"This is not something we're fighting about, come on, move it -"

"Just because you're scared -"

"Lynn!" Melody shouted, grabbing Lynn's shoulders and shaking them. "Come on, we've got to go!"

But Lynn didn't move. She had suddenly gone very pale, and was looking over Melody's head.

"Lynn?" Melody asked slowly. "Lynn, what's wrong?"

Lynn's eyes were wide and terrified as she pointed a shaking finger into the air. There was a rasping growl from behind her back.

Melody only had time to glimpse a blur of scales before something collided with her chest and sent her flying far away into the rocks.

"Melody!" shrieked Lynn.

A sharp pain in the back of her head and a blurred outline of trees was all Melody was aware of. Her instinct to get away took total control of her body. Dimly she could see herself stumbling to her feet and staggering away from where she had fallen. Her hand went to her pocket and pulled out her phone. Unaware of what she was doing, she put in her mom's number and listened to her voice mail message.

"Mom...Mom..." She stopped for breath. "Me and Lynn...Devil's Trap and...gowrow?"

She tripped and her phone clattered away.

Something flipped her onto her back and through the haze that veiled her vision she could see two huge white eyes and moonlight glinting off red stained tusks.

Two wet scaly claws grabbed her and she closed her eyes.

**A/N: Sam and Dean will show up and start investigating next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Sam Winchester quickly discovered that Newton County, Arkansas suffered from a complete dearth of motels. After circling through three separate towns in the Ozarks, he was forced to admit that he and Dean might have to spend the night in the Impala.

"Come on Sammy, sleeping in the car's not that bad," Dean said. The sun had long since set and the street they were driving down was following the 'no motels' pattern.

"Maybe if you're a midget, Dean," Sam said. "I'm gonna have to stick my legs out the window just to fit."

"Hey - I may be many things, but a midget is not one of them. And I fit just fine."

Sam sighed exasperatedly. "News flash Dean: I'm a half foot taller than you."

"Four inches. At most."

"Either way, there's no way I'm gonna cram into the front seat."

Dean put on a look of mock hurt. "Samuel Winchester. You think your own brother, who has looked out for you all these years, wouldn't offer you the back seat first? You _wound_ me, Sam."

"I am _not_ sleeping in the back."

"Why not?"

Sam picked at a loose thread in his seat. "Because there's literally no telling how many...friends you've had with you in the back."

Dean flashed him a grin. "I'm not sure your virgin ears are ready for the answer." He winked.

"I am not a -" Sam buried his face in his hands. "Look, are we absolutely one hundred percent certain there are no motels anywhere in town?"

"Afraid so," Dean said, pulling to a stop on the side of the road. "Don't worry, I'll take the back. I won't even need a blanket, I'll just let the light of happy memories warm me...if you know what I mean."

Sam was spared from having to reply by a knock on the window. Dean rolled down the window to reveal an older man with a tired, sad face looking at them apprehensively.

"Are you two boys doing all right? You've been driving in circles for a whole hour," he said.

"We're just peachy," Sam grumbled.

"Ha ha, what my brother _means_ to say," Dean said, shooting Sam a 'shut up' look, "is that we're just looking for a place to spend the night. You wouldn't happen to know of any motels nearby, would you?"

The man frowned and shook his head. "Not too many travelers out here. You won't find a motel for another fifty miles."

Sam groaned. Dean swatted him in the leg.

"Say," the man said, glancing between the two of them. "If you boys don't have anywhere to sleep tonight, maybe you could stay at my place tonight. We just had our guest room fixed up."

Dean visibly hesitated. Years of being hunters had taught the brothers to be suspicious of hospitality. However, the prospect of sleeping in the Impala was a more pressing concern to Sam than any half-hearted caution he felt.

"That would be great, if it's not a problem," Sam said gratefully before Dean could turn the man down. Dean scowled at him, but Sam ignored it.

The man nodded. "Just follow my car, I only live a few minutes away."

"Sounds great," Dean said with a forced smile. After the man had returned to his car, Dean spun to fix Sam with a hard glare. "Seriously Sam?"

"What!"

"This guy could be a murderer or worse for all we know. In fact, given our luck, I'd say it's pretty damn likely!"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on Dean. He's just some guy giving us a bed for the night. Being nice doesn't automatically make someone a serial killer."

"Yeah? Well it's a lot more likely."

"You're impossible."

Dean glowered but didn't respond. And when they reached the man's house and Dean hit the brakes harder than necessary, making Sam's knees slam into the dashboard, Sam pretended not to notice.

The man smiled apologetically when they got out of the car. "I'm sorry, I never introduced myself. My name is Stephen Roads."

"Oh, yeah, I'm Sam and this is my brother Dean." Sam and Dean each shook Mr. Road's outstretched hand.

"Now, Sam, Dean, before we go inside I must warn you, my wife might be a little...upset."

Sam and Dean exchanged curious looks. "Upset?" Dean ventured.

Mr. Roads took a deep breath before continuing. "Well, you see, our daughters have disappeared. They've been missing for two days. Vanished without a trace after leaving behind an odd message on my wife's phone."

"Really," Sam said, intrigued.

"Are the police looking for them? They didn't just run away, did they?" asked Dean.

"No, no," Mr. Roads said, wringing his hands. "The girls were very happy at home, there's definitely something else in the works here."

Dean raised his eyebrows, clearly interested. He gave Sam a meaningful look.

"As it just so happens, we..." Sam looked at Dean's hands. Dean made a gun shape with his first two fingers. "...are police officers. Who specialize in missing person cases."

"But we got laid off. Because of...budget cuts," Dean added. "We were on our way to our new job before you found us, actually."

"Our badges are in the car, if you want to see them," Sam said, mentally picturing the stash of counterfeit badges stowed away in the Impala's glove compartment.

"Oh...oh, well this is perfect!" Mr. Roads actually smiled. "The police around here are good, but they don't exactly send the top of the class to work in little mountain towns, if you catch my meaning. I'd really appreciate a fresh perspective if you could give it."

"We'd love to help out if we could," Sam said. "It's the least we can do."

Mr. Roads' entire countenance seemed brighter as he led the Winchesters inside. The brothers sat down on a low floral patterned couch. A newspaper with the headline "Missing Livestock Mystery Continues" lay on a light brown coffee table in the middle of the room.

A woman walked into the small parlor. Her clothing was rumpled and she was dabbing at her smudged makeup with a dishrag.

"You must be Mrs. Roads," Sam said as he and Dean rose to shake her hand. The woman sniffed and blew her nose into the towel.

"I've already explained the situation to Cheryl," Mr. Roads said. "Will you two need anything while you're here?"

"We'd like to hear the message your daughter left, if that's possible," Dean said. "It might help us find where your kids disappeared from."

Mrs. Roads nodded and pulled out her phone to play back the message. A teenage girl's slurred words poured out, saying something about a Devil's Hole and something that sounded like 'gowrow' before there was a thudding noise and the call ended. As soon as the message was done, Mrs. Roads began to sniffle again. "Excuse me," she mumbled as she quickly left the room with her phone and the dishrag pressed up to her nose.

Mr. Roads was hunched over, and had a worn expression. He was clearly upset by the unnerving message. "Is there anything else?" he asked.

"If it's all right, can we see your daughters' rooms? They might have left something there that could point us in their direction," Sam said.

Mr. Roads led them upstairs and directed them to two rooms facing across from each other. The first girl's room was relatively unremarkable. A blue bed with rumpled covers and candy wrappers underneath it was against one wall, and a brown desk with a laptop on it was set against the other. A quick look at the laptop's search history revealed nothing but the girl's crush on Taylor Lautner.

The younger sister's room was another story. A sign hung on the door that said "LYNN'S LAIR OF MONSTERS: KEEP OUT!" The room painted deep green and black. Posters from old horror movies hung on the walls, along with several detailed drawings of vampires, mummies, werewolves, and witches. To top it all off, a cardboard cutout of Godzilla stood in the corner.

Dean let out a low whistle. "So, what you're telling me is that this kid was practically _begging_ for a monster attack."

Sam grunted noncommittally. He had spotted the girl's laptop underneath a plush Loch Ness monster. Flipping it open, he checked the Google search history. Results for 'gowrow', 'gowrow legends', 'gowrow in Arkansas', and 'gowrow sightings' popped open.

"Dean, come look at this." Dean put down the rubber snake he'd been examining and joined Sam at the computer. Sam clicked on the first highlighted link. A snarling animation of a lizard-like creature startled them both. '_Welcome to the official Gowrow Website!' _was written in bright red letters across the top of the site. Links were provided to an "about the gowrow" page and a "recent gowrow sightings" page.

"What's a…gowrow?" Dean said with a raised eyebrow.

Sam clicked on the "about the gowrow" page. "A gowrow is, apparently, a twenty foot lizard with tusks, webbed and clawed feet, and a knife for a tail."

Dean frowned. "I've never heard of it. Also, that's a stupid name for a monster."

"It says it's only native to Arkansas. And it's named after the noise it makes when it's hunting."

"Whatever. It's still a stupid name."

Sam scrolled further down the page. "Look at this – so apparently, in the eighteen hundreds, a gowrow started slaughtering livestock and dragging the bodies back to its lair in the Ozarks. Some guy called William Miller got a posse together and tracked it all the way to a sinkhole called Devil's Hole."

"You mean the Devil's Hole missing girl numero uno was talking about?"

"Yeah, it looks like Devil's Hole is only a half hour drive away from here."

Dean groaned. "So little miss monster hunter and her sister must have gone looking for this gowrow thing down at the sinkhole. And then found what they were looking for."

Sam shut the laptop with a snap. "There was something in the newspaper downstairs about missing livestock. A gowrow attack seems...likely."

"What are the chances of them still being alive at this point?" Dean asked.

"There was something about gowrows storing their food until they get hungry. If it's got a bunch of livestock to eat, there's a chance the girls haven't been eaten yet. But I wouldn't count on it."

"Well," Dean paused to yawn loudly. "We'll go gowrow hunting tomorrow. Right now, I am _beat_."

"Same," Sam said. "Devil's Hole, first thing tomorrow morning."

"Can't wait to start my day somewhere called 'Devil's Hole'," Dean muttered.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

Dean backed the Impala out of the driveway while Sam fiddled with the laptop resting on his legs. Researching gowrows was proving extraordinarily difficult given that there had apparently only been a few sightings of the creature ever since its first appearence in the nineteenth century. Each website Sam visited gave different facts about its size, its diet, even whatever supernatural abilities it seemed to have. The only "solid" info the sites could agree on was that it was huge, lizard-like, had hard skin, and lived in caves and lakes.

Sam smacked the computer screen as the Internet connection fluxuated. Keeping a steady connection was as hard as finding anything useful about gowrows in the Ozarks.

"What've we got, Sam?" Dean asked, letting his eyes stray from the bumpy road as Sam tried shaking the computer, as though that would help him find a signal. "Are we thinking geckos or Jurassic Park stray for this one?"

"I'd go more with Jurassic Park. The smallest size estimate I've found so far is eighteen feet," Sam said. "And that's saying nothing of height. Some people think they've literally got Godzilla living in their backyard."

A rock in the middle of the road jolted the car and almost sent the laptop flying out of Sam's hands. The computer found one bar of service and slowly started loading the site Sam had been trying to see. Another obnoxiously formatted info page presented itself in bright neon lettering. Sam had to squint to make out what the site even said. According to a "LizardKing87", a gowrow had taken his pet dog one night and dragged it to the bottom of a lake. Upon investigation, LizardKing87 found tracks that would estimate the gowrow's size to be twenty feet high and several hundred pounds. Scratches in nearby trees would suggest sharp claws or scales. There wasn't any concrete physical description beyond "big" and "scaly". Sam shut the laptop with a snap.

"So we're basically going in blind, then," Dean said, noting Sam's clearly frustrated expression. He clenched his jaw. "Awesome. Because that always works out really well."

"There's always a chance that it's not a gowrow. I mean, we've never heard of it before. Maybe it doesn't exist. This could be a wild goose chase."

Clouds had moved in to cover the sun, and raindrops started pelting the car. Dean switched on the windshield wipers. "If I've had to drive _my _car over all this stupid gravel, then we'd _better_ not be doing this for nothing."

Rain continued to fall steadily, which almost made Dean miss the sign pointing down a small dirt trail that marked the path to Devil's Hole. He pulled off to the side of the road and parked. Water ran in rivers down the windows, slidding in random paths down the smooth glass. Dean reached underneath the driver's seat to pull out his sawed-off. "You think this will be enough?" he said, gesturing with the gun to Sam. "Or should I bring the Taurus too?"

Sam took his own gun out from underneath his seat and hesitated a moment before replying. "I'll grab the Taurus. Better safe then sorry."

Dean snorted. "Especially when dealing with Godzilla in Arkansas."

"Hilarious."

Sam and Dean got out of the car and were almost instantly drenched in the downpour. Sam squinted past the heavy raindrops. "So visibility is going to suck, then."

"Because why could _we_ catch a break," Dean grumbled, trying to wipe the water out of his eyes and failing. He popped open the Impala's trunk and tossed the Taurus to Sam, who barely caught it. "Try not to shoot yourself in the foot. I'm not carrying you back in this weather."

The dirt trail had turned to mud, and so the Winchesters didn't hike the trail so much as they slid down it. The wind was picking up speed and sending the bush branches along the path flying into their faces, which wasn't helping matters at all. Sam ended up getting a mouthful of leaves after a particularly strong gust. By the time they reached the end of the trail, both brothers were caked in mud up to their knees and were sporting stinging cuts across their arms and cheeks where the whipping branches had hit them.

Dean wiped his arm across his eyes and left a trail of mud over the bridge of his nose. "These kids had better not be playing hookey just to mess with us, Sam. I may never be clean again."

"I have a feeling they're not," Sam said, pointing to the end of the trail, which forked towards a small lake and the Devil's Hole, with a rocky stretch in between. "Look at those trees, the ones by the water."

They walked to the lake shore, which was flanked by dogwoods. Dean let out a low whistle. Several of the trees had gashes in their trunks, seemingly ripped by an animal's sharp claws. Dean ran a finger inside the slices. "These have got to be at least three inches deep. Those are some _damn_ big nails."

"Over here, Dean." Sam had found something and was turning it over in his hands

"What is it?" Dean asked as he joined him. Sam didn't say anything, but offered him the object. It was probably a phone at one point, but it had been shredded down the middle by something extremely sharp, making it almost unrecognizable if not for the barely remaining keypad. "You think this is whats-her-face's phone?"

Sam nodded slowly. "Looks like the gowrow got to it. And to her."

"That's unfortunate." Dean dropped the mangled phone on the ground, where it splashed into a puddle. "Nothing more we're getting out of that."

"Let's take a look at that sinkhole. Maybe we'll find something over there."

"Like a gowrow? That'd be nice," Dean said. Sam ignored him and they made for the Devil's Hole. The edge of the sinkhole was less interesting than the trees by the lake, just a hole opening in the side of the hill. Sam could see a fair way down the cave, before the rocks were swallowed up in darkness. A sign dangled by a rusting chain over the entrance, informing them that the cave was closed to all tourists due to unstable conditions.

"We're not gonna have to climb down this thing, are we?" Dean asked, crouching by the entrance. "Because that sounds like the mother of all bad ideas." He picked up a stone and chucked it down the hole. It ricocheted a few times, echoing loudly, before vanishing out of sight. Dean frowned when he didn't hear it hit the bottom. He tossed another rock, which also never seemed to hit the ground. Two more rocks followed down the cave. Dean was about to throw a fifth when Sam stopped him.

"Maybe throwing rocks into a supposed monster's den isn't the best idea, Dean," Sam said.

"What? I'm just trying to figure out how deep the thing is," Dean protested, letting the fifth rock fall into the cavern. Sam pulled a face and was about to respond when a quiet, scratchy voice echoed out of the cave.

"Is someone there? Please, is someone up there?"

"There's someone _down_ there?" Sam called down into the cave. "Are you okay?"

"_Yes_, I mean, no, my sister and I...we...we were - " The hoarse voice took on a panicky tone.

"Hey, listen," Dean said to the invisible voice. "Don't start freaking out, my brother and I are here to help, you've just got to stay calm, okay? Can you do that?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just...oh my gosh..." The voice trembled. "We were attacked and the thing...the thing it just was so _big_ and it got Lynn and I can't..."

"Nope, don't start freaking out, everything's going to be okay..." Dean said, but was cut short by a low groaning noise that drifted out of the cave. "What was that?"

The girl's voice pitched even higher. "Oh no, no no no, it's coming _back_, no..."

There was another groan, which turned into a loud growl that almost seemed to be of displeasure. Sam and Dean worriedly backed away from the edge of the Devil's Hole as the growling got closer and there was a clacking noise of something sharp dragging against rock. The stones they walked on were slick with rain and mud, and one misstep sent them both tumbling backwards. But they hardly noticed their bruised hands thrown out to stop their fall as an ear-splitting roar sounded from the cave and a monstrous lizard emerged to tower over them.

Sam's size estimates had been _modest_ compared to the enormous beast that finally showed itself. The gowrow was thirty feet long, at least. It was a sickly olive color and had two yellowing tusks protuding from its mouth. Round white eyes with rosy irises accustomed to darkness narrowed in on the brothers. A snarling mouth with dripping fangs let out a grumbling bark as the animal pulled itself out of the cave in a fluid motion and pounded forward.

Almost without thinking, both brothers raised their guns and fired on the advancing monster. The gowrow hissed and drew back for a moment, but the bullets had reflected off its scaly skin. It was enough time for Sam and Dean to scramble to their feet and make a run for the trees, both of them hoping the creature would be too wide to fit between the close set trunks.

The gowrow bounded ahead of them and cut them off from the forest. Its tail swung behind it, and the knife-like tip sliced into the wood, sending a spray of splinters to the ground. Dean tried shooting it again, but the scales turned the bullet like before.

"So did you just _forget to mention_ that guns do jack all against this thing?" Dean asked Sam as they pivoted and dashed in the opposite direction.

"None of my research agreed on that!" Sam said. He almost slipped again on the muddy ground, but Dean caught his arm to steady him. The momentary halt was enough time for the gowrow to get ahead of them again, skittering along the rocks and forcing them backwards towards the cave. "Duck!" Sam shouted as the gowrow leaped and swiped at them. The claws clipped his jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground with three deep gouges across his cheek. The gowrow bore down on him, but Dean sent it reeling back with a rapid succession of shots aimed at its nose.

"You okay?" Dean asked, pulling Sam to his feet. Red trails ran down Sam's face as the rain mingled with the blood. "I'll live," Sam said, grimacing and pressing a hand to his injured cheek.

The gowrow pawed at its snout with a bloodied claw. Dean's bullets had knocked some scales loose from its nose, and the skin underneath was shiny and raw. It roared gutturaly and tore towards them again.

"Aim for its eyes, they look squishy," Dean yelled as he dove to the side. The gowrow twisted with surprising speed and lashed out its tail. The knife-like appendage knocked Dean's gun out of his hands and left a red slice along his palm. Sam flung up the Taurus to defend himself and pegged the monster twice in the left eye. The gowrow shrieked and rasped as the bullets penetrated its eye, and it writhed blindly. The brothers had to fling themselves to the ground to avoid being decapitated by the flailing claws and tail. Still screaming, the gowrow barreled towards the lake and dove beneath the surface and disappeared, leaving a cloudy trail of red in the water behind it.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

"H-hello? Are you still there? Please, is s-someone there?" The girl's voice was still calling from inside the cave.

Sam and Dean rushed back to the entrance. "Yeah, yeah, we're still here," Sam quickly reassured her. "Don't worry, we're coming down there to help."

"Excuse me, we're doing what?" Dean started to ask him, but was interrupted by the girl's voice again.

"The gowrow d-didn't get you?" she asked in a panicked tone. "What h-happened? W-where did it go?" Her fast-paced breathing made her trip over her words.

"Hey, woah, everything's okay, you've just got to calm down," Sam said with an even, gentle voice. "We took care of the gowrow, it's gone into the lake over there, and now my brother is going to climb down there and get you out. See? It's all gonna be okay if you just stay calm."

Dean put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Um, let's go back to that part about me climbing down there? Yeah, I'm thinking that's maybe a bad idea. Or did you not see the 'unstable conditions' sign?"

"Dean," Sam said as he brushed Dean's hand away. He leaned in and half whispered so the girl couldn't hear him. "That girl's been down there for two days. She can't climb up herself. Plus, all we've got to climb down with is a regular rope up at the car. No carabiners, no belay devices, just a rope. Out of the two of us, who's weight is the rope more likely to hold?"

Grudgingly, Dean accepted Sam's unfortunate logic. "But what about when I'm carrying her up? How's it gonna work then?"

"You'll figure something out. I'm gonna go get the rope. Keep her calm, okay?"

Dean let out a huff of frustration as Sam jogged back up the trail and settled down on the ground outside the mouth of the cave. He put his hand underneath his chin and examined the scraggly plants trying to grow out of the rocky earth. He pulled a few up by the roots and tossed them into the cavern.

At least the rain's letting up, he thought, turning his eyes skyward, where the deluge had lightened to a drizzle. Water seeped up from the ground, turning the dusty dirt into slick mud. If I'm rock climbing to my death, it might as well be muddy too. He threw a rock into the cave just to hear it crack satisfyingly against the stone walls.

"W-what was that?" squeaked the girl.

"Sorry," Dean said. "Just taking out my anger on the walls."

"Oh."

He lapsed back into silence until Sam returned with the coil of rope. "Okay," Sam said. "There were two ropes, both a hundred feet. I tied them together, so after I attach it to you and me, you should have about a hundred and ninety feet to climb down. I'm your anchor up here, but beyond that there's not much I can do to help you."

"That's comforting," Dean grumbled.

Sam didn't respond. He took the rope and tied it securely around his waist, then found the other end and looped it around Dean. "There you go, that's it. Get going before that gowrow comes back."

A small shriek came from the cave as the girl said "It's coming back?"

"Shut up," Dean whispered, rubbing his face in annoyance. Then in a louder voice, "Guess now's as good a time as any." He carefully lowered himself into the hole, feeling around for a foothold, but Sam stopped him before he got any further.

"Wait, I got you this," Sam said. He pulled a head lamp out of his pocket and put it around Dean's head. "Now you look like a real spelunker."

"Har har, very funny," Dean said. "Okay, I'm moving down now."

Sam laid on top of the rope as Dean edged his way down into the Devil's Hole. The first few steps were relatively easy, with plenty of hand holds for Dean to use, but after a little while the stones smoothed out and holding on became significantly harder. The mud wasn't helping matters either.

About fifty feet down, Dean came to a relatively flat ledge, where he rested and turned on his head lamp. The cavern had twisted and blocked out the sunlight, plunging the cave into literal absolute darkness. Dean shone the light around, trying to see a place to put his feet. He saw what looked like a lucky outcropping of rock a few feet below him, so he began to climb down to it.

As soon as he put his boot on the outcrop, it jostled loose and fell down into the dark. Startled, Dean loosened his death grip on the wall and in a heart-stopping moment his fingers slipped. He shouted as he fell before the rope caught him. His short tumble was stopped with a snap that wrenched his back painfully. For an instant, the rope creaked like it was going to break, but the knot held. He scrambled against the wall for something to hold onto.

"Dean? Dean, are you okay?" Sam shouted from the top of the cave.

It took Dean a minute to answer. "I'm awesome," he said breathlessly. "Just...just gimme a second, okay?"

"Did you fall?" the girl called from a long ways below him.

"Yes, but like I said, I'm fine," Dean answered with a tinge of irritation. He looked down to shine his light into the encompassing darkness. The next twenty feet lit up before being swallowed in the dark again. "Can you see my head lamp?"

"No, I can't see anything."

Dean leaned his head forward against the cool, moist rock and sighed. Long ways to go, then, he thought. His fingers were starting to shake from the strain of holding his body. There was still the return journey with the girl on his back...he wasn't sure if he was going to make it or not.

Moving much more slowly than before, he started creeping down the slippery surface again. The steady drip of water trickling off some stalagtite was starting to bug him, a lot.

"Are you almost here?"

"I'm working on it, sweetheart," Dean ground out. The kid would not shut up.

The stone underneath his hands was smooth and slick, eroded almost to a glass-like consistency. With an unpleasant twist in his stomach, Dean realized that if he fell again, there wouldn't be anything for him to grab again. The bright glare of the flashlight reflecting off the wet wall wasn't helping matters either.

"How much more rope you got, Sam?" Dean shouted.

"About thirty feet. You're almost there, Dean."

Dean spent a few seconds struggling to place his feet. Thirty feet was a long ways away, not to mention that would only be the half-way point, and on the return journey he'd be carrying a hundred extra pounds and gravity would be going against him.

"I knew this was a bad idea," Dean grumbled to himself. Then louder, "Can you see my light now, kid?"

There was a moment of silence. Then -

"Yes! Yes, I can see a light. That's you, isn't it?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Who else would it be?"

"W-when the gowrow comes up here from the lake down there, its eyes shine sometimes..."

What.

"Excuse me?!" Dean yelled. "The gowrow comes up from the bottom? And you didn't think to mention this earlier?!"

"Should I have?"

Dean could faintly hear Sam cursing with words he didn't know he knew. He pushed down a vague feeling of pride and focused on the highly troubling new info he now had to deal with. "So what you're telling me is that the gowrow could literally show up at any time?"

"U-um..."

"Well that's just damn peachy, isn't it." Dean groaned and carefully lowered himself a few more feet.

"I can see your shoes, you're almost here. Just take a few steps down and to your left..."

Tentatively making his final descent, Dean jumped down to a flat outcropping that stood beneath an overhang. Huddled in a corner in an odd nest made of damp grass and what were probably bones were two girls. Both had dark hair and very pale, sallow skin. The older one was shaking and looking at Dean with sunken brown eyes. The younger was curled against the other, dead asleep, or more likely unconscious.

Dean blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I can't carry two of you back up."

The older girl bit her lip worriedly. "Lynn won't wake up, I've tried and tried but she just won't."

Dean hesitated, then knelt down next to them. The girl twitched away reflexively, but didn't stop him from examining the younger girl, Lynn. He turned her onto her back. An ugly inflamed gash ran across her belly where her clothes were torn. It looked infected, but shallow enough to not be life threatening.

"Okay, she's going to be fine if we can get her out of here," Dean said, in a gentler tone of voice than before. He stood up, bundling the small girl up in his arms. He moved to the edge of the outcropping and looked as high up as he could. There was no way he was going to be able to carry two girls, both in need of a visit to the hospital, all the way back to Sam at the entrance.

"Hey Sam, we've got a problem," he called. "I've got two kids down here, and only one back to carry them with."

"That...that is a problem," was the response.

"...You got any suggestions?" Dean asked. He could tell he was being a bit salty, but he was already very sore from climbing and it was only going to get worse.

"You could tie one around your front and have the other on your back. You know, like in the Princess Bride."

Dean rolled his eyes. "That would work if I was, you know, Fezzik the giant. Instead of Dean the regular sized human."

"You got any other ideas?"

Unfortunately, Dean did not, so he did his best to tie the unconscious girl to his front and told the other girl to hold onto his back.

She looked at him skeptically. "That is not going to work."

"Any other bright ideas would be nice. Unless you don't have any. Funny how that works. Now just hold on and don't let go. Okay? Okay." The girl reluctantly hoisted herself onto Dean's back and clung to his shoulders.

Dean took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He could already feel the strain on his back from holding up both girls and he hadn't even started climbing yet. "Brace yourself Sam, we're coming up now."

Dean reached for the first hand hold. Grabbing it and pulling himself up made his arms shake under the strain. One hundred and ninety nine feet to go, he thought grimly. There was a slight shuddering in the rock underneath his hands, which at first Dean thought was his own trembling muscles, but which he gradually began to realize was coming from the wall itself, like something heavy was throwing itself against it.

And then, in a loud spray of water and a deafening roar, the gowrow burst up from underneath them.

The girl shrieked into his ear, half-deafening him. Startled, Dean let go of the wall and dangled in the air, with one girl screaming and clutching at him while the other girl remained completely unresponsive in his arms. Cursing every deity he could think of, Dean tried to swing back to the wall and get out of the raging gowrow's path.

"Dean!" Sam shouted down into the cave, but Dean was preoccupied by the gowrow lunging for him and the girls, who were dangling helplessly like fisherman's bait ripe for the taking. With a snarl, the gowrow seized them in its claws and yanked them down. The rope snapped instantly. Dean squirmed furiously within the monster's grasp, but couldn't break free with the two girls pressed so tightly against him. The gowrow barked, leveling its bloodied eyes to Dean's. Dean gave his fiercest scowl as the gowrow blew a snort of hot breath onto him. It twisted around, with one hand propelling it down the cave and the other still clutching the three people tightly. Dean barely had a chance to take a deep breath before the gowrow plunged into the lake at the bottom of the cave.

Dean automatically gasped in shock at the freezing water, letting some of his precious air escape in a trail of bubbles. The gowrow was speeding insanely fast deep underwater. The quickly mounting pressure pushed against his ears until it felt like they were going to explode. Was this how the gowrow killed its victims? Drowned them then ate them?

Dean's headlamp was still on, giving him a flickering view of the underwater tunnels the gowrow was speeding through. The swift turns disoriented him until he could barely tell which way was up or down. His lungs were beginning to burn from the strain of holding his breath. Still the gowrow showed no sign of slowing down.

His lungs blazed as he fought to not inhale water. It was funny to him that he felt he was burning at the bottom of an icy lake. He smiled faintly and his fight to escape the gowrow's death grip slowed. The lack of air was doing things to his head. He tried to focus on how the girls were doing, but it was difficult to even move his head to look at them.

Even as his vision began to tunnel, the gowrow twisted yet again, this time shooting straight up. Dean could scarcely register what was happening before his head broke the surface of the water. He gasped for air desperately, panting deeply as his head cleared and he remembered to try and fight his way out of the gowrow's fist.

The gowrow hissed angrily, as though surprised he was still alive. It snapped its jaws and swung its sharp tusks at his head, which Dean quickly ducked beneath. Then, taking his own initiative, he leaned down and bit what looked like sensitive skin between the gowrow's fingers. With a yelping bark of pain, the gowrow twitched its finger out of the way, giving Dean enough space to wiggle out of its grip and splash back down into the water. The gowrow tried to reach back down and nab him, but was repelled by the miraculous sound of a gunshot.

"Sam!" Dean coughed, resurfacing with both girls thankfully still strapped to his body. "The eyes are squishy, remember!"

"Got it Dean," Sam said, firing off another two shots and driving the gowrow back further. Dean began swimming for shore, trying with some difficulty to keep both girl's heads above water. An inhuman scream behind him told him that Sam had hit the gowrow in the eye again.

"It's leaving!" Sam said, tucking his gun back into his belt.

"Friggin' awesome. Now come help me with these two."

Sam ran into the water and quickly swam out to Dean. Both girls were unconscious now with water running out of the corner of their mouths. Sam untied the older girl and put her on his own back. Hurrying to the shore, they each dragged a girl onto dry land. The older girl began to cough up the lake water, but the younger one didn't move.

"Move, Dean," Sam said, roughly shoving him aside and staring CPR on the girl. After a few rescue breaths, she began coughing and breathing on her own as well. Both brothers let out a sigh of relief.

The older girl moaned and opened her eyes. Sam housed her up into a sitting position. She looked at them both with wide anxious eyes.

"So- it's gone? We're going home?"

Sam rubbed her back and smiled. "Yeah, it's gone...at least for now. And we're taking you home right now." Dean nodded in affirmation.

The girl remained completely still and silent for a moment...and then burst into tears of relief. Dean stood up and pulled the still unconscious younger girl onto his back while Sam did the same with the older girl.

"Come on," Sam said. "Let's get you home."


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Sam and Dean waited in the doorway of the small hospital room. The girls they had saved from the gowrow laid in separate cots, each one with an IV line running out of her hand. Mr. and Mrs. Roads sat in blue plastic chairs between them, watching their sleeping forms. The younger girl, Lynn, had yet to regain consciousness at all since her rescue. Mrs. Roads held Lynn's tiny hand in her own, gently rubbing it in small circles, while faint traces of tears shone on her cheeks.

Mr. Roads looked up at the brothers, though he didn't make a move to rise from his seat by his daughters' sides. "I don't know how we can thank you enough. If I hadn't met you yesterday..." He closed his eyes, as though that would block the mental image of his daughters never being found.

"I'm just glad we could help," Dean said. He shifted uncomfortably by the door. The emotional reunion between the girls and their parents was slightly discomforting to him.

There was a small rustle of sheets. "Mom?" croaked a raspy voice. "Where...mom, where am I, what's going on..."

Mrs. Roads' attention quickly shifted to her older daughter. "Mel, shh, it's okay, I'm here, Dad's here...you were missing for a few days, and now you're back in the hospital. Do you remember that?"

The girl's eyes widened slightly. "Mom...there was a monster, it was going to eat us...it's coming back!"

"No...Mel, you're just a little confused. It's all okay, you're safe now..." Mrs. Roads stroked her daughter's hair soothingly. After a mumbled contradiction, Melody's eyelids slipped shut and she fell asleep again. Mrs. Roads heaved a tired sigh and slumped back against her chair heavily.

Sam gave Dean's shoulder a slight shake to turn him away from the scene. "We should probably get going. We've got...things to take care of, you know." Sam shot him a pointed look.

"Um...oh. Yeah. That thing." Dean gave the family another glance. "I hope, uh, everything works out for you guys."

Mr. Roads briefly quirked his lips at them, though his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Thank you so much for your help, gentlemen. If there's anything we could ever do to repay you..."

"That won't be necessary. So, uh, good luck with everything." Sam gestured out the door. "Come on Dean, let's go," he said in a lower tone of voice.

The Winchesters quickly left the grieving family behind and got out of the hospital as fast as possible. At the Impala, Sam paused to look across the hood at Dean. "So we have two options: one, leave town forever and hope that gowrow just decides to leave people alone from now on. Two, we head back to the Devil's hole and try to kill the bastard, even though we still don't really know what we can even do against it." Sam leaned against the car door. "Bullets to the eye seem to be working, but beyond that I don't think there's much we can do."

Dean propped his elbows on the car. There were a few seconds of silence as he thought. "Well," he said. "We can't exactly just leave the thing to kill more people. Guess it's option two, then." He ran his hand through his hair. "What did they do back in the eighteen hundreds to kill it off? They didn't have handguns like we did."

"They still had guns back then, Dean." Sam rubbed his head, trying to remember what his scant research had turned up on gowrows. "I think there was something about getting a sword between the thing's scales, though. And then, you know, into its lungs."

"We don't have a sword."

"I know that!" Sam said exasperatedly. "But we've got plenty of knives. And those are...sort of like swords."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, and Star Wars is sort of like Star Trek. Doesn't mean you should ever mix those two up." Sam started to protest, but Dean interrupted him. "Yes, I know, I don't have any better ideas and it's the best we've got to deal with." Dean rubbed his face in frustration. "If we die, I swear I'll kill you." With that, they simultaneously opened the car doors and slid inside.

The bumpy drive back to the Devil's Hole jostled both the Impala's shocks and the boy's nerves. "So the plan is to wait until dark when the thing's most active, and then go at it with the Taurus and the hunting knives," Dean said, for the third time.

"And you're taking the Taurus while I'm taking the knives," Sam added.

"And how do we lure it out of its hole?"

"By throwing stuff down it or yelling or something. I still think it's going to be in the lake though. Most of the websites said it hunted there during the night."

Dean sighed. "So we might end up fighting it under water? Freakin' fantastic..."

Sam quickly reached out and jerked the wheel as an animal jumped across the road. "Careful, Dean!"

Dean swerved as whatever it was scampered away. He switched on his headlights. "It's darker up here already," he noticed. "We might not have to wait very long to go after this thing." Another animal, some sort of opossum, ran across the road that Dean narrowly avoided. "What the hell? Where are all these animals coming from?" he grumbled.

Off to the right of the road, the trees rustled, and out of nowhere the gowrow itself burst in front of the car in hot pursuit of another opossum. Dean and Sam both shouted in surprise, and Dean barely managed to spin the wheel sharply and skid to a stop right before hitting the massive lizard. Without a moment's hesitation, Sam and Dean leapt out of the car, weapons in hand. The gowrow turned from its smaller prey to investigate the brothers. Dean didn't wait to fire off three shots, two of which reflected off the scaly armor and nearly buried themselves in Dean's arm. The third found its way in between two plates and pried them open.

Sam dove forward, one knife raised threateningly while the other was sheathed in his belt loop. He tried to drive the blade into the chink in the gowrow's scales but missed by a few inches. The gowrow twisted to face the new attacker. Its long tusks nearly took off Sam's head.

"Sam, get back!" Dean shouted. But neither his brother nor the gowrow paid him any attention. The gowrow kept its bloodied eyes trained on Sam and snapped menacingly at him. Sam swiped at the gowrow again, but it countered the strike with its pointed tail.

"I've got an idea, Dean," Sam called. "But you're not gonna like it."

Dean shot the gowrow in the eye again, which only succeeded in angering it more. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Just follow my lead!" Sam ducked beneath the swinging tail and then jumped up onto the gowrow's back. The gowrow barked out in surprise, and pitched forward to try and buck Sam off. Sam jammed the hunting knife deep between two scales close to him and cut down into the muscle beneath. The gowrow wailed and writhed, but Sam clung to the handle of the knife and managed to hang on. Enraged, the gowrow barreled into the thicket away from the road with Sam still desperately clutching the knife in its back.

Dean took off behind the gowrow, doing his best to keep up with the impossibly fast monster. The gowrow slithered gracefully between the tree trunks, as though it was swimming underwater. It was only through stubborn will-power that Sam was able to stay on its back for the entire ride. The gowrow raced into the clearing where Sam and Dean had fought it before and promptly dove into the deep lake, taking Sam down with him before Dean could catch up.

Skidding to a halt at the water's edge, Dean frantically looked for any sign of his brother. "Sam!" he called out, but silence was his only answer.

Under the water, Sam maintained his iron grip on the knife handle while he fought against the sudden blast of frigid water. The beast struggled to shake him loose. They barreled towards the sandy bottom of the lake, where the gowrow flipped onto its back and nearly crushed Sam against the silt. Sam narrowly avoided death by shifting his position to be hanging on practically underneath the gowrow. He drew his other knife and was about to stab into the softer underbelly of the monster when the gowrow flung up its tail in a parry against the blade. Sam blinked in surprise and nearly released his grip on the first knife. The gowrow snarled silently and tried to cut Sam open with its sharpened tail. Sam blocked the attack and sliced at the gowrow's tail. There was an odd screeching noise as the metallic objects collided with each other. Sam once again countered a strike to his neck and barely slipped beneath a swipe from the gowrow's claws. A lucky cut took off one of the gowrow's fingers, causing it to scream and momentarily take its focus off of Sam. Taking advantage of the monster's distraction, Sam plunged the knife up through the belly scales and straight into the creature's heart.

There was a second of stillness as blood started to pour out of the cavity in the gowrow's chest. Then, with an unearthly shriek that pierced Sam's ears painfully, the gowrow began to twitch and convulse. Sam ripped the knife out of the gowrow, causing even more blood to cloud the water in front of him. The death throes of the howling gowrow rippled through the water as the dying lizard tried to take a final swipe at Sam's head but missed.

Sam's lungs were burning for oxygen. He released his grip on the knife in the gowrow's back and pushed off from the shuddering carcass. He swam as fast as he could for the surface of the icy water. Black dots began to swim in his vision and the freezing water made his muscles lethargic, but he pushed on as quickly as possible.

Dean paced along the edge of the lake, trying to stem the rising tide of worry inside himself. At the sound of a splash from the middle of the water, he raised his gun to firing position, expecting to see a furious gowrow. Instead, a powerful wave of relief washed over him when he saw it was Sam, minus the angry gowrow. He rushed into the water to help Sam drag himself out of the lake.

"What were you thinking, Sam? Riding a gowrow into a lake?" Dean said, trying to mask his concern with disapproval. Sam just smiled at him, seeing through the angry facade. Dean slapped him on the back and helped pull him to his feet. "So it's dead then? No more gowrow issues?"

"No more gowrow issues," Sam confirmed.

"Awesome. What do you say we get the hell out of Dodge?"

Sam put the knife back into its sheath in his belt, not caring about the blood stains that were sure to follow. "Sounds good to me. I'm done with Arkansas for a long time."

Dean clapped him on the shoulder and they set off for the Impala waiting for them back at the road. "Me too, Sam. Me too."

THE END


End file.
